surreymum

We went to Machu Picchu in 2019. I am neither elderly nor disabled but have an issue with dislocating kneecaps so prefer to use a collapsible walking pole on steep or uneven ground. I had a thick rubber tip on my pole and it wasn’t questioned when we entered.

2 hours ago, bitob said:

The email expressed regrets and provided an email at Princess Cruises to handle claims.  The email to Princess had an automated response saying it might take 4 weeks to respond. LOLOL

 

My TA really worked hard on this.  He was astounded by Cunard's lack of a quick response.  I am now dealing with a customer relations rep at Cunard who has promised to follow up on my 2 missing bags, one of which might be retrievable.  Needless to say we have lost most of our favorite and best cruise clothes and I really cannot begin to replace anything until I am sure of what was lost.  I have Luggage Forward coming on Nov 2 to pick up 2 bags for my next cruise (Regent) so I have to have things sorted out soon.  Basically all  I want is 1) to find out status of 2 lost bags and have any recovered bag returned to me in any condition and 2) quick fair compensation for lost or damaged items.  

 

This is not rocket science for a business.  Cunard did not have anyone at the Pier to check on recovered bags and to then contact owners.  Cunard has not called affected passengers (I only got action because of my TA).  Really unacceptable.  If I did not have a great proactive TA and AirTags I would be lost.

I’m sorry this has happened to you. I know it’s only “stuff” but I’d be devastated if all my favourite outfits were lost or destroyed and would be an absolute disaster if this happened as you boarded. We are shortly going on a trip around Japan and our luggage will at some points be sent by train to our next hotel. Your experience has prompted me to order Apple AirTags. Our luggage has been lost on several occasions while on flights and tracking it down is very stressful. Thank you for sharing.

I have 2 friends that are dance hosts and they have just set sail.

On 6/9/2023 at 6:44 PM, SargassoPirate said:

Check out whatsinport.com for info about what's in every port one can imagine.  We use it for info that the cruise lines don't like to share - such as you can step off the ship and it's an easy walk into town.  The cruise line would rather sell you an excursion than have you go off on your own.  After our third visit to Athens on a cruise, we explored the port city of Pireaus.  And that was after the cruise director said there was nothing to see there. Print out the map from whatsinport.com and you're all set.

I cannot thank you enough for your recommendation of whatsinport. We are booked on Cunard’s South American 79 day circumnavigation and this is precisely the information we had been looking for. We have taken a number of cruises and like to mostly do-it-independently as we dislike the shopping opportunities and food stops offered on many of the shore excursions preferring to spend the time walking and trying small cafes. There are some places where the safety of ship’s excursions are preferable and this site will help us figure out where. Thank you again for sharing. 

There is a section from Southampton to Rio de Janeiro. 

https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/find-a-cruise/V503A/V503A

Was Onslow in Britannia class wearing his string vests on Gala nights?

Thanks @Solent Richard. 

We were at Icy Strait Point in June and when at the top you were required to wait at a point until there were 10 people together to walk down due to bear activity. At that time you were not allowed to walk all the way down and there were rangers with rifles. 

You do need to watch out for Alaskan Drop Bears though 😂

Not quite the same but my husband tested positive the day before we were due to fly home from Fairbanks after an independent land tour following a cruise. Our UK travel insurance stated that as we were travelling together they would pay my accommodation and flight costs as well as his so I could stay with him. Just waiting for them to reimburse us the enormous cost of the re-arranged flights.

12 hours ago, OttawaJohn said:

For any still curious, I got my new passport today.  Alaska, here I come... assuming my flight with Air Canada isn't a disaster 🙂

I am absolutely delighted for you. Thanks for coming back on with the update. Have a fabulous trip.

This largely depends on what sort of things you want to do. The port days aren’t particularly long so whereas there are tour operators at the ports you may have limited choice. We did this at Skagway and were able to get onto the White Pass train easily but that can accommodate a lot of people. There are lots of excellent independent operators offering more personal, but not necessarily cheaper, tours.

Check out Snorkel Alaska in Ketchikan if you fancy a very different experience from snorkelling in the Caribbean or Mediterranean. They use thick wetsuits so you don’t get cold. We had a very good trip with them.

Also take a look at Harv and Marvs in Juneau - very good small boat whale watching.

Last month we took the Alaska Railroad independently a couple of days after our cruise to Seward. In Seward we were staying at Harbor 360 hotel. They labelled our luggage up and took it to the station and we didn’t see it again until Anchorage. We had to collect it and return to Anchorage station the following day for our next leg. There were massive queues for check in and for luggage drop but somehow it was all done by time the train departed. There were separate queues for Princess cruise lines and the Alaska Railroad one labelled ours up for direct transfer to Denali Bluffs Hotel. 

Whether it is transferred directly to the hotel appears to depend on which hotel you are staying at. For Harbor 360 in Seward it was complementary which made it very easy to stroll the few minutes to the station. Denali Bluffs charged a small fee to collect it and drop it off at the station again ($8 per person I think).

I understand your misgivings. We were on a Vancouver to Seward cruise in June. Our flight from Heathrow was excellent, possibly one of the best we had been on with BA and we had no difficulties at Heathrow. ArriveCan and US ESTA didn’t take long to do and getting a covid test done in Vancouver wasn’t too difficult. We had a lovely few days in Vancouver prior to boarding taking a floatplane flight, visiting Capillano suspension bridge, walking round Stanley Park etc.

There was a slight hitch during boarding but they kept on getting out more and more chairs and organising people in rows so that when boarding did recommence it was in an ordered fashion. The cruise itself was great. We did only independent excursions and they were all excellent, well organised and efficient.

We finished it off with a self organised land tour using the Alaska Rail Road. We enjoyed the train journeys but found the hotels extremely limited. Staff shortages meant that none provided housekeeping, restaurants were often not available and were expensive. Our luck finally ran out at the very end when my husband caught Covid and we had to delay our flights back. This marred an otherwise excellent trip. This could have happened anywhere and unless you plan to never travel anywhere ever again is always going to be a risk. Our replacement flights were stupidly expensive and we have submitted an insurance claim. My immunity from infection earlier in the year must have been sufficient to stop me catching it. He definitely didn’t catch it on board. Enjoy your trip. Alaska is beautiful, the people we met were friendly and helpful and we saw excellent wildlife.

We used only independent operators on our recent cruise. Each one spoke about about how using independents benefitted the community more than those booked through the cruise lines. 

We were on the Millenium in June for the Vancouver to Seward cruise. We are from UK. 

There is no requirement for covid tests to enter Canada provided you are fully vaccinated. We were asked for evidence of this prior to boarding our flight in London.

We had our pre-embarkation covid tests done at Canada Place for CAD89.99 www.covidtestsvancouver.ca The results were emailed to us but I’m sure you could get the hotel to print a hard copy.

No further testing required on board. Not a great deal of mask wearing on board other than in the theatre. There were quite a few shortages of wines and spirits though

We loved the refit. We had a balcony cabin and thought the layout and storage was fantastic and the bathroom was excellent too.

Have a fantastic time. We did. Or did until Covid struck at the very end of our independent land tour and we got stuck for an extra 5 days in Fairbanks which is not the greatest place to be without a car. Replacement flights to UK were extremely expensive and we had to pay for them upfront before claiming back from our insurance.

We did a kayak trip with Fairweather Kayaks which I booked through Hoonah Travel Adventures. We were given excellent instructions on where to pick up our shuttle and thoroughly enjoyed our trip. We were accompanied by a safety boat and they took loads of photos from that boats which they later emailed to us. One of our party is a non swimmer and he felt safe and secure at all times and had a fabulous time.

We got off in Seward on Friday. Very few people were wearing masks. They were required for the theatre but that was not being enforced and plenty of people seemed to not bother or wear them dangling from one ear. We chose to wear ours in crowded areas. 

https://www.trenchardtravel.co.uk/

I’m pretty sure this was the company we used for transport from Surrey to Southampton and then return after our cruise last year. They were reasonably priced, friendly, efficient and provided a vehicle that could comfortably fit 6 of us plus luggage.

Last week there was no dancing in the Yacht Club. On the two gala nights there was an orchestra and singer in the Queens Room and on most of the other nights there was recorded music and sets with a small band and singer. Ballroom dancing was only really possible on the gala nights. The dance floor didn’t seem to be policed in any way but it never seemed to be necessary. There was no requirement to wear masks when dancing or while seated. There were no dance hosts so you needed to have a partner.

There appeared to be beginners dance classes most days.

Those cabins weren’t inaccessible though. You could access them through the lift lobby, just not walk all the way down the corridor. On the port side on deck 4 all the cabins appeared to be full of guests and there were definitely guests in the ones on deck 5. If the plan was to use them for isolation they would have been necessary to have been kept empty. Whether other sections were kept empty I can’t comment on. We booked ours on the day booking opened so it’s not even that the plan had been to keep them empty and they were later allocated as restrictions began to lift.

10 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

I'm more intrigued now. Not that it really makes any difference at this point (I'm just curious), but which cabins had restricted access on your deck? And you had one of those cabins? Or are you just saying you had a cabin near the restricted zone?

I can only speak for deck 4, but from embarkation onwards fire doors prevented you walking to the rear section of cabins other than from the rear lobby. It was necessary to go down to deck 3 to walk forward. As far as I could tell all the cabins in my section had guests not crew in and we just assumed that the fire doors were just to lessen traffic in the narrow corridors. Others have suggested this was to enable quarantine or isolate infected guests but all the guests in these sections would have had to be moved out of their cabins to allow this. 

Hope that wasn’t the reason as that was where my cabin was.

I agree with Mumsysailor. We were also on last week’s QE sun cruise. We had a massage in the spa , Pilates classes in the gym, singing in the pub and plenty of dancing in the Queen’s room. Once you were in place masks were not required and the same applied in lounges and bars. We didn’t have any port stops so can’t comment about shore excursions but we had a fantastic time. Don’t let your concerns put you off just be reassured that they are taking Covid seriously and trying to minimise risk while giving you as great an experience as they can. 

For a private tour I would recommend Knowjamaica tours. We used them a few years ago from Falmouth and did the tourist bit of Dunns River Falls and river tubing as it was our first visit but Javia tailored the rest of the day to our interests. He was interesting and informative and we left with a very positive view of Jamaica.

Surrymum,

 

 

 

The Serenade is a Royal ship, not Celebrity's ;)

Sorry if I confused you. I said that a few years ago we tried Celebrity but last year sailed Serenade. I hadn't felt the need to clarify that Serenade was Royal as the "of the seas" is in the name of all their ships. It was perfectly clear in my head but maybe not so much when written down. [emoji3]